The Ringer-Verse - Ringer-Verse Recommends: November 2025 (Featuring 'It: Welcome to Derry')

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

We all pod down here. You'll pod, too. Recommends returns for a Thanksgiving feast! First, Ben brings on Zach Dionne to talk about 'It: Welcome to Derry,' Hollywood's obsession with Stephen King (including several new adaptations in 2025), the dos and don'ts of adapting King, the historical highs and lows, and the future of King's work on-screen. After that, other Ringer-Verse hosts and friends salute unsung releases to complete another expanded installment of the monthly roundup of fandom favorites from TV, anime, movies, video games, books, comics, and beyond that were released recently but not yet covered in-depth on a full-length episode. (00:00) Intro (02:38) 'It: Welcome to Derry' with Zach Dionne (19:17) Bigger Stephen King discussion (49:22) Van's recommendation (50:20) Steve's recommendation (51:30) Daniel's recommendation (53:58) Chuck's recommendation (54:30) Matt's recommendation (59:48) Jomi's recommendation (61:16) Listener recommendation Host: Ben Lindbergh Guests: Zach Dionne, Jomi Adeniran, Steve Ahlman, Van Lathan, Charles Holmes, Matt James, and Daniel Chin Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Social: Jomi Adeniran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject trumphia, proper training is required. Tramphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver

problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Trimfairadio.com. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors.

So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need WeatherTech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. Oh, hello there and welcome into the ringerverse, your nexus feed for all things fandom. I'm Ben Lindberg, senior editor for the ringer button mash host and Ringerverse recommends dude back with yet another edition of our monthly roundup of nerd culture releases we liked in the last month but haven't had a chance to discuss in depth on an episode of the Ringiverse or House of R. It's Thanksgiving week. And so we are with you a little early this month. so as not to interfere with your travel or your holiday gorging.

But we have some holiday fare for you on this episode. Really, we give thanks at the end of every month on Ringaburse Recommends for the content cornucopia that is delivered unto us. And this month will be no different. As usual, I will be followed by several of my colleagues who will submit their clips later in the episode, talk about some things they liked. You can, of course, skip straight to that if you care to using the top. timestamps, but I hope you won't. I hope you'll stick around. I'll be back later in the episode

with the Great Grumpkin, my loyal docks and companion, and we will recap all the picks, and we will share a listener recommendation sent as always to Ringaverse Recommends at gmail.com, where we welcome your submissions and nominations for future months. But this month's spotlight conversation comes to us, courtesy of me, and my pal, Zach Dion, we will be discussing all. We will be discussing things Stephen King, with an emphasis on It, Welcome to Derry, which is in the midst of its first season on HBO and HBO Max. We've been enjoying it, but I always enjoy Stephen King, if not always, Stephen King adaptations. Stephen King's my favorite author. I know real original of me, but Zach is a huge Kinghead as well, and I'm glad that we could get together to talk about

not only it without spoilers past episode five, because we haven't watched ahead, but also a wider-ranging conversation about King adaptations, the highs, the lows, the ebbs and flows over time, what makes them successful, what makes them unsuccessful, some recommendations. That's what we do here, after all. So I'll talk to Zach in just a second, and then we will reconvene for our collection of picks later. And so, let's get right to it. I hope you'll join me for this full-length interview and conversation about it. Welcome to Derry and Stephen King adaptations, one way or another, I'll talk to you a little later on. Well, whenever I read a new book by Stephen King, which typically happens at least once a year because we are blessed by Stephen. The first person

I contact to compare notes with is Zach Dion. I consider myself a constant reader and a king connoisseur of sorts, but Zach has me beat. Not only does he match or exceed my devotion as a reader. But he has been writing Deciders' stream-in-king column about King adaptation since 2017. He has a King-centric Patreon called SKZD, and he's written about King and many other pop culture topics in his gigs at Complex and Fuse and Vulture and GQ and Grantland, where we were all too briefly colleagues. Name a pop culture site and Zach has probably written about Stephen King for it. So I'm delighted to have him here to talk about King today. Zach, my friend, long days and pleasant nights.

Yes, and the same to you, Ben. Thank you. That was such a nice intro. Thank you, Sy. Well, I know you're a ringerverse listener, so we welcome you to the other side of things. And I guess we will start with a show that's currently airing because we could start in so many other places if we were talking about King Adaptations in 2025. But I think this is timely. Stranger Things may be coming out this week, but if you can't get enough of kids, riding around on bicycles in small,

supernaturally terrorized towns, then may I interest you in It? Welcome to Derry on HBO and HBO Max. We're five episodes through an eight-episode season. And you know what? I can give this my unqualified recommendation. I'm sincerely enjoying this show. Oh, great.

Okay. Yeah. You too. Yeah, ups and downs. It's never great when like writing, Flubs are your biggest weakness, but the craft is great across the board. The writing is pretty good. The acting is incredible.

I'm having a good time. Me too. And this is from almost the entire creative team that brought us the movies, now ported to the small screen and transported back in time to 1962. This is a prequel to the It novel and movies, and it's sort of based on the interludes in the original It's book, where we learn a little bit about the past Pennywise cycles, and we are seeing one of them here. There are plans for two additional seasons where there will be prequels to the prequel, I guess. We'll go back even further in time. So we've gotten glimpses

of the 1935 cycle and the 1908 cycle, which perhaps will be explored in even greater depth. But we're in the early 60s here, and we're getting a lot of lore about Pennywise, more than we got even in the books or in the movies. How do you feel about that? Because that's been, I think, polarizing where there's a school of thought that says Pennywise is scarier when we don't know what he slash it is. And here we're getting deep dives and data dumps

on how Pennywise came to be and where it came from and how it can be stopped and all the rest. Yeah, yeah. I'm enjoying the lore that's about like It itself coming from space and the indigenous population 400, I think, years ago. I think they've really pitched as this is the origin of Pennywise, which, you know, is only one of his manifestations. And they've, you know, last night, number five of eight aired. And small spoilers, first time we saw Pennywise, the one we know, the Bill Scarsard.

In the classic clown get up, yes. Yeah. So we're just scraping the surface of getting to know. the Pennywise origin story. And so I'm excited to see where it goes. I'm much more interested in it, the entity as a whole and its ancient origins. I mean, when you read the novel and you're a kid or whenever you read it and you get that glimpse when they have this hallucinatory vision of it crashing to Earth, that's just the

most tantalizing stuff that you always want more of. But to your point, maybe not too much more of. Yeah, I'm into it. So there's sort of this sacred order of protectors who have kept it at bay. And there are 13 guardian areas where bits of the comet or meteor that it was encased in are sort of buried underground to tighten this cordon around it. And so it's a little bit to, you know, maybe McGuffany at this point. We've got lots of buried magic shards, et cetera. But I am, you know, it hasn't gotten to be too much for me.

There is the idea that this is just a really scary entity and the less we know about. about it, the scarier it is, which is sort of true, right? Sort of true for the characters and the kids, clearly. But as a viewer and as a big King fan, I sort of appreciate what we've learned about it and Pennywise here so far. And as a horror, scaredy cat, if people don't know that about you yet. That's the other thing. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm not a huge horror guy, which might sound strange to people. Why is King my favorite writer if I am such a scared cat when it comes to my media? for one thing, I love King for his non-horror work. And the real Kingheads know he may be known as the master of horror, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a deft touch when it comes to all sorts of other genres. And that's been true in adaptations too, right? Green Mile and Shawshank, et cetera.

It's not necessarily the scariest stuff that hits the hardest. The other thing, though, is that I can stomach horror more easily on the page than on the screen. Yeah, yeah. It has tested me from time to time, especially the first episode and the memorable first scene, which I will not detail in depth and all the grisly detail here, but I will say that there was a moment there where I thought the premiere of the pilot, I'm good. That's enough for me. And if it had not been for this podcast and the opportunity to talk to you, I might have stopped there, but I'm glad.

I didn't. It got a little less gross since then. Still pretty gross. A lot of birthing-based terror going on. Oh, yes. Which I was all excited to see. What are they trying to do with this? And, you know, HBO is running an official podcast,

and the musketties are on there, Andy and his sister Barbara. And they were asked about it. And they were like, you know, we didn't really think about it. We realized we'd written a few episodes and we saw this through line and we didn't know what we were trying to say with that. It just kind of happened. I think Andy was like, I've had two children since I made the It movies. and I'm more familiar than ever with the horror and the trauma of childbirth. So I think there's some of that in there.

But maybe I'm not convinced that they really don't have a bigger plan. I do kind of think they might. Yeah, look, I was in the delivery room when my daughter was born. And there are certain images that are seared onto my retina that maybe if I were like Marge in It's Welcome to Derry, I would head to the shop room. Oh my God. Try to remove my eyeballs. You know, look, my wife had it harder than I did, obviously.

So I can't complain. And the miracle of life and childbirth, and it is wondrous. But also, it gets gory. It's hardcore, man. Yeah. Yeah. So I also don't mind the lore because, you know, it can be challenging at times when you have a kid cast. And we've seen that in Stranger Things, obviously, with the time jumps and the growth spurts.

which is a little less of an issue with a single season, although there was a pause for the writer's strike, which is noticeable maybe. Yeah, it's rare you see it happen within one season of TV, but these kids definitely grew, some of them more than others. Smart of them, though, I guess, to rewind the clock in season two or three if they make them,

you know, not to have to worry about the same cast of kids. Good point. Yeah. But, you know, the acting hit or miss, right? I'm not going to call out any specific kids, but, yeah. There are some whose screen presences I enjoy and others a little less so. That's always going to be the case with a kid-centric test.

I think at least three of them are doing really good performances, at least three of the kids. And the ones that aren't, you know, they're- Leave it to the listener to decide which three. Yeah. Wild that, I think her name is Matilda Lauer, the one who playing Margie. She was young Kirsten and Station 11, which just like doesn't even give you for me. Was incredible in that role. Yeah, yeah, incredible.

It's so, like, lovable in such a. an incredible little heroine and Margie on this show is just like insufferable. She's a really tough hang. Yeah, it's true. Well, she's got great range, evidently. So, and I would say that the production values, you know, it's HBO, right? So, and this was originally intended to be a streaming only series, but it is on HBO proper. And there are times where you can maybe tell that the budget or the production values or the effects a little lacking compared to the movies, maybe.

but I would say on the whole, it's quite well done, especially with the horror stuff and the scary stuff. There's a lot of reliance on sort of like the shadowy figure behind a tree far away who's kind of creepy and amorphous and then suddenly will like fast forward and speed up and catch up to you in a jerky way. The shaky run, the Pennywise shaky run. Oh my God. We've seen it probably at least eight times in five episodes.

Yeah, they've been going to that well quite often. Yeah. I think the set deck and the costuming and some of the cinematography is like really good, but they are leaning on CGI at the wrong points. The establishing shots of the town and the standpipe do not need to look at CGI. And like the Musquettys are really good at building tension and making really scary set pieces and it almost always without fail ends up with some CGI bullshit. It's true.

I don't know what that compulsion is. I think they like old monster movies, and they're like, this is the way it's done now. I think there's a little more practical than people think. I'm watching those inside the episodes every week, and you can see them filming some stuff. They're like, oh, I thought that was completely CGI, but they actually had some practical in there. And the setting, you know, it's very 1962. It constantly reminds us of when we are and where we are and the music and the aesthetic. and the sets and everything else trying to ground us in this almost stereotypical, I guess,

representation of this time. Maybe that's sort of self-conscious in a way. And, you know, we're getting this kind of Cold War setting, right? Where the Army thinks that it's that Pennywise can be the Trump card in the Cold War, essentially. And playing with fire, you know, they don't know what they're dealing with, they don't realize that they are not equal to the task. And, you know, I guess it's, it's not even really allegory. It's just, it's very much on the surface, you know, this is kind of what happens with nuclear weapons as well. We unleash a monster that we can't entirely control. And so they're, they're hoping that this monster will, you know, be scarier than the human-made monsters, essentially. But so far, at least, they have not been equal to the task. And given what we know

about it and Pennywise's recurrence in a later cycle and in the movies and the book, it seems safe to say that they're probably not going to solve this problem in the show. Yeah. Bad plan to quote binge mode. I think they...

Bad plan. Operation Precept, they're calling it. Yes. Yeah, it's a wild development that they want to use Pennywise to end the Cold War. And I guess that from Maine to the Soviet Union is like the quickest route if you're going over the North Pole.

Right. Yes. I don't know about that. I think Alaska and Russia were still pretty close at that time. Yeah, that's a tough pill to swallow because just the military knowing so much about Pennywise, like they're talking about its cycles. They're talking about its forms. And it's like one of the biggest things of this books is the adults just don't know shit. Like the town, the monster casts this blindness over them. and also it becomes kind of a willing blindness. And that's like why the kids are,

A, why they're disappearing so easily and B, why they're the only ones to fight it. So it's odd that these adults and this, you know, literally the military has so much information. But I'm not rushing to judge where any of this stuff is going. You know, it's not like will it work or not? We know it's not going to work. And we also know they're not going to significantly defeat it.

Exactly. In any of these scenes like, you know, the 89 version in the films, the first timeline is 1989. They kind of defeat it. They weaken it. And then they don't beat it until 2017 or 19. And I'm interested to see how do they get a win in these seasons and how does it affect like its next cycle, you know?

What does it learn coming into 89 that, you know, kind of fucked it up in 19? I'm really curious. It raises the question of what's going on between the 60s and the 80s, right? When it is dormant, wouldn't that be the perfect time to strike? Or did they learn nothing? Is all this knowledge forgotten? Great question. Great question. So, yeah. I mean, the child care slash parental supervision situation in dairy is lax as usual. But you do wonder what happens to this knowledge. I mean, maybe that bodes badly for all of our characters here, or at least the adult one. potentially that this knowledge is not passed on and acted on in future cycles. Especially because we're seeing earlier generations across the board here. We're seeing Mike Hanlon's dad, Will Hanlon as a kid and his grandfather, Lee were a Hanlon. These people do not leave Derry. We saw Stan's probably grandfather, Teddy's older brother there. people think that Margie is going to be

Rich's mother because Richie Tozier's mom is named Margaret So there's the one question of like, is this too many, is this too much of generations between this show and the other one? And then it's like, well, what about the fact that all these people just stayed there? I don't know. I think the amnesia that it cast is pretty powerful. And also it's kind of a losing game to try to pin down the logistics of this stuff, of the amnesia or of it. It's like it's very slippery.

It's, you know, when they face it in the book, it's like a psychic battle that you could barely just, you can barely understand, much less describe. So I think that's baked in. Yeah. And I like how they've represented the entity in this show where, as you said, we don't see the classic Scars Guard clown until episode five.

Maybe that's because of contracts and availability or who knows what, right? But they've covered for that at least by showing all these different guys. and it's playing on each person's fear. And so I think they've showed the many forms that this entity can take. And the Army, I was going to say the good guys, but that's questionable. But they have an ace up their sleeve

ostensibly in Major Hanlon, who is unable to feel fear because of a war injury that has taken out his amygdala. Although in episode five, the most recent one we saw on Sunday, he seems to be just as unmanned beside himself as anyone else. And even more in the episode before when he's out fishing with Will. That was a face of terror.

Yeah, he's supposed to be cool and collected and calm under pressure and analytical. And he seems to have flop sweats just as much as everyone else from what I can tell. So, best laid plans, I guess. Yeah, the military's plans are already going awry. We don't have to wait to see them go down spectacularly. It did not go well for them in the sewers. they're not on the money exactly about Leroy. Yeah.

And as with most prequels, if you kind of have a sense of how they end or at least how they don't end what is sort of precluded by the preexisting story, then it just comes down to can it tell a compelling self-contained story and do you care about this cast of characters and finding out what happens to them?

And mostly, I do. So I want to broaden this conversation a little to other King adaptations, but maybe we can do that via the character of Dick Howleran in It Welcome to Derry, because this is, of course, the same character. We glimps briefly in The Shining, the original movie, and who also appears in Doctor Sleep,

the sequel to The Shining book and movie, and now is showing up here in a major expanded role. There is also a cameo for this character in It, the novel, too, but he's key to the military's efforts in that he has the shine, the shining, the mental ability to, be able to detect it and where it resides. And this is kind of part and parcel with the interconnectedness of King and the Kingverse,

which has really exploded on the page. As his career has gone on, he has become more and more self-referential, sometimes literally self-referential, and that he has put himself into his books. And that could be a divisive tactic too among the readership. But, you know, perhaps as he's gotten bolder and has he's gotten more popular and, you know, people could say it's self-indulgent or he's high on his own supply or, you know, maybe it's just he's developed this incredible corpus of work over half a century and can't help but forge these connections. And as a reader, especially as a dark tower devote, that's one of the most

rewarding things about reading King is trying to suss out all of these connections. And we're starting to see that on the screen as well. And there was, of course, the castle. series, which was sort of a mashup of many King's stories and characters. So how do you see that interconnectedness of King's written work now porting over two movies, to TV shows, and two more and more stories? Yeah, I think it's really exciting. It's done pretty seamlessly in the novels for the most part, unshowily. It was kind of, it was like how the MCU is, but many years before. It's cool to see it on screen. I'm a little nervous about the corporate machinations of what we might not be able to see, but Warner Bros. did Doctor Sleep. They did the movies,

so they can put Dick Howren in there, and it's cool. Yeah, I like the idea of taking something that was small in the books and digging into it, not just because, like, oh, look what we know. we can put Dick Howard in here, but he's crucial for maybe 10, 15 pages in the novel in a key flashback. So I'm enjoying seeing them explore and Chris Schock's performance is incredible. We got Carl Lumbley doing a new rendition of him in Dr. Sleep a few years ago, and now we get Chris Chalk doing this a few decades before. I'm really into it. And it's, you know, I think we might circle back to the potential Dark Tower adaptation, but this is kind of testing. ground for that of how does it feel to do it? How can it be done? Again, just with the corporate rights.

Yeah, I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, I'm intrigued by it too. And for people who've seen the most recent episode, the Pandora's box, Dick Hauerin's mental box that was opened up in episode five. If you're a reader or watcher of Dr. Sleep, you have some sense of what's happening there. And he makes sense in the story. You know, it's not purely fan service or shoehorned in, and he was in the novel and obviously is playing an important part here that suits his character. So as long as it makes sense, then I'm into it. And, you know, we could have done a Ringiverse recommends almost at any point this year about King adaptations, because there have been so many.

And every time I think we have reached peak King adaptation, we hit a new peak. And this year, we've had four movies, which is, I believe, a record in a year, in addition to two TV shows at Welcome to Derry and the Institute. So I wanted you to give me a quick ranking of the 2025 King adaptations. I believe you've liked them all to some extent, but we've got Life of Chuck, we've got The Long Walk, which was the most recent, or the running man actually is the most recent. I can't keep track. And the monkey in addition to the two shows.

So how would you order them? Okay. Number one with the Bull is The Life of Chuck for me. I know this is kind of a love it or hate it for people. That's just my number one. Number two, the long walk. I was so impressed. Number three, so far is welcome to Jerry.

I'm preserved my right to change it. Four would be the running man. I liked it quite a lot. Five, the monkey also liked it. Wouldn't say loved it, but it didn't, I was never bored. It didn't rub me the wrong way. I've watched it three or four times and I still enjoy it. And then the Institute, which was an MGM plus, you know,

which is like through Amazon thing and better than it had any right to be, I would say. It's heavily based around kid actors and they take a minute to find their footing kind of. But yeah, that's how I would rank them. And, you know, I'm a king completist when it comes to the written stuff.

I'm going to get to the Tommy Knockers one of these days. I still have not knocked off that tome. It's not bad. It's not bad. I mean, it doesn't have the best reputation, but there are a few King novels that I still have not gotten to, and I'm sort of saving and savoring at this point, because there is a finite supply, unfortunately,

even though he keeps cranking him out. But, you know, I will. 78 years old. Yes, and still going pretty strong, depending on what you think of some of the most recent novels, which we've been aligned on Never Flinch and Fairy Tale, not our favorite King works, but they have their pleasures. So I read them all,

and will eventually have read them all. But I'm not as much of a King completeist when it comes to the adaptations because, you know, it's not King directly involved all the time or most of the time. And even when it is, that doesn't mean it will necessarily go great.

There's kind of a checkered past, you know, hit and miss track record. So I wanted to ask you as someone who has just about seen them all and written about them all about the ebbs and flows of King adaptations over time because, you know,

it's been more than 50 years, since his first published novel, Kerry, came out, and then the Carrie movie came out two years after that. So there's basically been King on screen almost as long as there has been King on the page. And so he's been prolific for so long that we've had multiple rounds of the same things getting adapted over and over again. And we've had high points and low points, both in terms of quality and quantity. So it seems like we're at a relative high point now.

what would you point to as previous peaks or valleys? Yeah, so there was just so many in the 80s, which, you know, is his first decade in people's consciousness. You know, his first books are at the end of the 70s, and the 80s was just, I haven't counted how many all came out in the 80s, but it was so many. I would say 83 and 84 was probably the first peak in nine months. There was Kujo, the Dead Zone, Christine, Children of the Corn, Firestarter. He even had Tales of the Dark Side, Tales from the Dark Side episode in that year. So that was a big one. And then 2017, you know, you were at a great piece about this on Theringer.com.

What a great website. Where the Dark Tower came out, which was not good. But that was like a landmark moment of something that they'd been wanting to make for years and had all these ambitious ideas about and stuff. And they put out a 90-minute film. So sad. So Dark Tower came out in 2017. It came out right after it, which could not have been a bigger difference in quality and box office and reception.

And then Netflix got into their Stephen King game with Gerald's game and 1922. And most of that stuff was pretty good. There were two series that year, The Mist, they remade as a TV series. And Mr. Mercedes, they got started. It was a three-season thing. and the latter sounds like it's quite good. The mist sounds like it was god-awful. But that was a big, big, big year.

And it was a long time coming. People were very excited about it. 2019, very quick turnaround to another big year, but it was a really mixed bag. That was when the chapter two came out, which was a huge hit, not as big of a hit as the first one and substantially less beloved than the first one. Dr. Sleep came out,

the sequel of The Shining, Mike Flanagan's second film, so good, fizzled at the box office, and just alarming people are not even aware that it exists or that The Shining has a sequel. But that was quite good. But then there was also tough stuff. There was the Pet Cemetery remake, which was not great. There was season two of Castle Rock, which was a dip from the first one, in the tall grass, which I do like a lot, another Netflix film.

And then that streak from 2019 to 2020 kind of ended with the, outsider on HBO, which was also very good. So, 2017, probably the biggest one in 23 or four years since the early 80s, 27, 19. So, so 2022 to 23, it happened again of like a big glut, and that was uniformly pretty bad, a fire starter remake. Mr. Harrigan's phone, one of the most boring films

I've ever seen. The boogeyman, which was not bad. And then kind of just outside of the year mark of those, they did Pet Cemetery Prequel Bloodlines, which was also quite poor. And now here we are again. So, yeah, wild for it to have been 2017, 2019, 2022-3, and now we're here again.

And like, thank God it's been a great year. Like, I do love all six of those things. Yeah. It goes in cycles, like, pay-wise resurgence is. Yeah, but better. Much quicker. Much quicker now. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, there was a lull. And now it feels like, I mean, maybe it's just part of the hunger for streaming content, at least until recently, you know, until there was a downsizing. Everyone wanted that hot IP. And yeah, maybe it was video games or maybe it was Stephen King. Hey, we have half a century of work just lying here dormant either not yet adapted or adapted so long ago that it's ripe for re adaptation. And a whole new generation, right, that's come of age because he's been at this for so long that, There are multiple generations of King readers, and many of them are now making movies and TV shows and have this longstanding love of King.

As do you, as do we, and so I wonder whether your years of writing, streaming King, and subjecting yourself to the worst of Stephen King adaptations and also the best has given you any grand unified theory of what makes a quality King adaptation or where the worst ones go wrong. Yeah, so when Dr. Sleep, the director's cut, came out, I did a deep dive about Mike Flanagan and why he is the torch bear. You know, it was Rob Reiner. Yeah, it was Rob Reiner first, stand by me, and then Misery, which are two of the very best, but he only did do two movies. Then Frank Deribont, Shawshank and Green Mile are so highly regarded for rightfully so. The Mist among fans and Horrorheads is beloved, but it's nowhere near the status of those other two. And yeah, now Mike Flanagan is the first one to have to have surpassed either of their amounts of output, Reiner, or Deribon. And so I've got a great quote from him, which is

what he thinks is the secret ingredient, which is it's his voice in your head, and he's a distinct voice. If you try to force him, his structure, and his characters into a mold they weren't intended for, it's not a good fit. I thought about this a lot watching the long walk. And recently, I got the 4K of the mist, and I've been watching the black and white version. And, And, you know, the Long Walk was the first novel that he ever wrote, not first he published, but first that he wrote as such a young man. And the dialogue is so of its time. And so, like, I can't picture young men speaking like this, but they, they were faithful to it. And similarly with the mist, you know, that's from late 70s or early 80s. And it's, we just have so much more perspective now on the whole Oove of King that I think,

sticking with his tone, with his dialogue really helps make a film good and also just makes it contribute to the body of work even better. I would say things that make them go wrong is just making random changes for no reason. The 1990-it miniseries changed Penny Wise's cycle from 27 to 28 years to they change it to 30. Why? No reason. And I know a lot of people love that mini-series, but it's just one example. Or they'll change characters' relationships to each other. You know, these two are siblings in the book and their friends in the film,

or they'll just randomly change a name. And that always kind of signals to me that we're maybe not in the best of hands, because I don't know if that's just a director and screenwriter wanting to, like, put their stamp on it. But when it just serves no purpose, it almost always detracts from it. Yeah. And I guess there is a desire to do something different because if you are just ultra faithfully doing what was in the original story, then yeah, maybe either you feel a little less accomplished as a storyteller, you feel like, well, why are they going to come out and see it? This is always an issue with video game adaptations and how different do we want to make it.

And that's why in general, I get a little less excited about adaptations than I do for original stories. Even if it's an adaptation of something I love, well, I've read it or I've played it. So that doesn't mean I don't want to see it, but there's a little less surprise there. And the best that it can happen is it's another good version of this thing that I already love. So maybe it's a desire to, yeah, put your own stamp on it. And maybe they've learned over time that it's better to be faithful because King kind of knew what he was doing. You know, maybe it goes hand in hand with just the critical reappraisal of King over the years, which I've also written about for the ringer.com.

But the idea that he's seen as just sort of a pulp horror guy, bestseller, airport thriller kind of writer. And then over time, he's also appreciated as just a master storyteller, just more of a literary figure, you know, who can write dialogue and emotion and themes and everything, right? Not just a good yarn. And so maybe there's a little more respect for his original story or reverence for it or reluctance to stray from it. because it does seem like the adaptations this year, obviously it, Welcome to Derry is expanding greatly on what's ultimately a pretty short part of the original novel. But most of the movies are pretty faithful,

with the exception of the monkey, I guess, right? And that's one of your lower-ranked adaptations of this year. That one certainly takes some liberties. But maybe it's just the idea that, yeah, it's tough to improve on Stephen King. So why have the hubris to think that, you can. Yeah, yeah. And I think just the fact that filmmakers now have, again, the bigger perspective of the bigger body of work. I think it helps a lot. I think when you had in the 80s, you know, Kubrick, Kronenberg, Carpenter, all the seas, doing their, what they thought was maybe going to be

like the best Stephen King movie ever in the most unique. And there was just such a smaller body of work then. And I think it really benefits filmmakers now, not only to have grown up with his work and have had the opportunity to read so many more novels than the filmmakers in the 80s and 90s did. But just kind of seeing so much more of what has worked and what hasn't and where is it good to take your shot to make it something unique to you and where is it good to be super faithful. I think another secret sauce is like navigating the contradictions of King. You know, some of his books, you hear people a lot say it's his characters, his characters, I love them. Some of his books, the characters are almost a blank. I'm not saying they're bad, but they're really...

Or cringy. Or cringy. And you could have a novel, like, let's say the stand where the characters are so good and the writing is so good. And a lot of the dialogue in the stand is like, shit, it's not great. And then you'll have a different book like Dolores Claiborne where the whole book is one unbroken monologue. And the speech and the dialogue and that is so, so good. And the plot is pretty thin, not bad, but it's, you know, you could just, describe it in an elevator pitch, and that's Dolores Claiborne. So it's interesting where, you know,

the stats are maxed out in certain books and where they're low, and there's just so many contradictions to when and what makes him great. And I think if you can navigate that very, you know, intangible aspect, you're in great shape. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah. Kubrick starts with a K, I must correct. Yes, yeah. Just in case we get emails. But I saw what you were going for. So what would we put on the King adaptation Mount Rushmore then? I was searching for some kingier construction than Mount Rushmore, like all things served the beam, like the six beams of King or something. You know, the consensus classics, what would you put on there?

Yeah, I like Rushmore. And I think critical consensus, The Shining, ever heard of it. Yeah. Shawshank. Zach has said, you did show and tell for those of you who are listening, but not watching. He's got some physical media for us. Yep. Shining, Shawshank, stand by me.

I think those critically are the three. And the fourth spot is, you know, it's up for interpretation, but some people might say misery. Some people might say carry. I think that's kind of where. Some people might say the Green Mile. So my four would be the Shining and Shawshank do make it in there. It is one of them.

It 2017 is one of them. And recency bias a little bit, but honestly, I think the life of Chuck is in there for me and will be like a lifetime film for me. That spot could maybe go to Dr. Sleep. And I like all the consensus ones, you know, the dead zone, but yeah, those would be my four. What did you find so effective about the life of Chuck? Oh, the fact that it's a very recent one, I really appreciate. appreciate the way he's exploring mortality recently. That's in the life of shock.

That's in elevation. So it's very now. It's king now. It's not digging back for an old gem. It was published in 2021 and made into a film this year. Yeah, because a lot of the ones you just named that are on the Pantheon that I would probably put there as well, they've been around for a while, which I guess makes sense since we're talking about the consensus classics that have stood the test of time. So you probably, they would be older, but it's nice to have a new addition. Yep.

Life of Chuck is told very interestingly, reverse order, which is funny that Welcome to Derry is now going to do that by seasons. I just really like its message about the brevity of life and how some of your smallest, most unexpected moments, like a random dance on the street to a busker could be some of the things that are some of the only things left with you when you're on your deathbed. So that was very, very powerful to me. It's Mike Flanagan and his team who just know how to do this stuff so well. Great performances. A completely indie film on such a small budget and just a great reminder that you don't need a ton of money to make a great Stephen King movie. I mean, Gerald's game is pretty much in one room, and that's also Flanagan. So yeah, the earnestness of The Life of Chuck does not bother me.

I know it rubs people, some people, the wrong way. It seems like maybe more than not. But I love it. It's so powerful to me and beautiful. Are there any other unsung, underappreciated adaptations outside this critical consensus, acclaimed pantheon that you highly recommend? The outsider, 2020, yeah, 2020.

It's got Cynthia Arrivo, Ben Mendelssohn. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Such great performances. some of the best prestige TV king, probably the best. Yeah, HBO and feels more HBO than it, welcome to Dairy does. Oh, yeah, absolutely. So definitely watch The Outsider if you haven't. I honestly don't like the novel and I loved the show, which that's a great feeling when that happens.

It's pretty rare, but sometimes it does happen. And then I would say not as strongly as the outsider, but I would say the stand from 2020 to 2021, one that mini-series they made for Paramount Plus is where it is now. And I liked it a lot. It chops up the timeline and goes, it's very lost, influenced. And that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. But it's like we're going to see the stand adapted probably another four or five times in our lifetime. It's the one people who are like, this is the one that's going to be taught in college classes in 100 years.

and so it's like this doesn't have to be the definitive one, it's just an adaptation of the stand. And if you read The Stand in 2020 and you watch this miniseries, it was a once in a lifetime experience and opportunity. You had one chance for this global pandemic to be happening and to read The Stand, which is about a worldwide pandemic. And then to watch the adaptation so close after you finished it. I've talked about this before and written about it, but a lot of people avoided any pandemic-related media during the pandemic, which is understandable.

I kind of watched more of it. I was playing, you know, Last of Us Part 2 and then Station 11 and the stand and everything. And it almost reassured me in a way because it was like, well, this is terrible, but it could be worse. Yeah. It could be the stand, you know? We've got it better than that. Plus, in a lot of these books and stories, at least people come. come together under adverse circumstances.

Exactly. That didn't always happen in real life, but it was heartening to read, you know, people coming together and finding common cause, even if it only fractured us more in reality. But I'm with you. And, you know, these things come around again. It's like you don't love the original pet cemetery. Wait 20 years and you'll get another pet cemetery and you probably won't love that one either. But wait 20 more years, you'll probably get a third crack at it.

Maybe that'll be the charm. So give me the king thing that hasn't been adapted yet or hasn't been adapted in a long time, at least, that you most want to see for the first time or a second attempt at. And let's save the Dark Tower for our last answer, which we will get to in just a second. But any others that you think just an adaptation hasn't done them justice yet. Apt pupil. I haven't watched the first one. It was made by Brian Singer, who's a pretty problem. if not like outright,

deporable, abusive person. So I have not watched the original apt pupil, but man, if people don't know what that novel is and why it would strike today, it's a different seasons, right? Yep, yep, which is one of his best books.

Shawshank Redemption, the first story, and then Aptuple, the second, which is one of the darkest things you'll ever read, where a, like a 13-year-old, like he's described as an all-American boy, and he has a neighbor who he finds out is like a former Nazi and a witness protection kind of situation and he tells the guy like,

hey, I'm not going to blow your cover, but you need to tell me all about the Holocaust in detail. And it fucks them both up deeply. They both just descend. And that would be very interesting today. I would love to see it. Yeah.

That's a good pick. Probably not a common popular pick, but that might be a good reason. And we've got much more Flanagan on the way. Of course, we've got a carry version. I know that you mentioned before we spoke, you'd like to see Duma Key, a favorite of mine to,

or a redo under the dome 112263. But let's talk Dark Tower to end here, because, yeah, it was the ultimate deflating moment when we got a Dark Tower adaptation with a good cast. and just completely squandered. So they have to cry our pardon for that just debacle. Yes.

But they forgot the face of their father. They did. But we have to hope that Flanagan has not. And he's working on it. It's a ways away. Who knows how long. But I can't think of a better person to be shepherding this along. Absolutely.

Are you allowing yourself to hope that this could be as good and as huge as it deserves to be? there's no reason why the Dark Tower can't be a Game of Thrones level cultural phenomenon. I mean, there are very few of those. Maybe it's impossible to have anything be that big now in this media environment. But there's no reason why that can't be as big as anything out there if it's done well, because those are among my favorite books, and I'm sure the same for you. Yeah, and it's completely unique. Like, if people haven't read it, you almost don't feel like you're reading Stephen King a lot of the time.

The Dark Tower is just kind of its own job. genre. It's Western, fantasy, sci-fi, horror, just realistic adventure. I'm hoping against hope that it happens because Flanagan would kill it and because I just want it to be in the culture. Like, I want to be able to have Game of Thrones size conversations about the Dark Tower. That would just be such a fun era. It would be good for you professionally. Be a lot of demand for your services. Yeah, I never thought about that. purely selfless as a fan of Stephen King and Dark Tower.

Yeah. Yeah. It's very hard to pull off just logistically. Mike Flanagan does so much work. He's tapping into the Exorcist when we just totally failed rebooting the Exorcist. He's doing that carry adaptation after it was already announced. He had the rights to the Dark Tower. His new deal is with Amazon, which loves to cancel shows after two or three seasons.

Amazon filmed a... by all accounts, excellent pilot for a Dark Tower series, like almost right off the back of the movie. And it would have been a whole different situation. It was going to start where Book 4 starts, which is a flashback. And they just didn't pick it up. So I worry about the Amazon deal.

But Mike is clearly putting so much thought into it. And he wants to have those crossovers between characters. He's already in the nitty-gritty of trying to negotiate those rights and figure out how they could get. characters in there. And he's very hung up on the issue of Jake, who's the young, who's the young member of the group of the Cotet. And he's, he does not want to be in a stranger thing situation. And I think he's really looking for a way to crack this code of how to not have this kid age substantially more than he does in the story. So, yeah, I'm, I'm hopeful. It can't be worse than the

first attempt, I guess. But I, I hope it's as good as it deserves to be. And it does feel like Flanagan's the right person to be in charge of that. And it almost feels like, I mean, I wouldn't want him to be committed to king only. I like his non-king work as well. I don't want him to get burned out just being a single, single-minded adapter. But it does feel like just put him in charge of all the king adaptation somehow. You know, it'd be nice if it could be kind of like a king verse that was. A figy.

Yeah, right. But when that was working better, you know, like a figy, fallowdy kind of figure before that. became fraught and things sort of went south, but a person who could kind of control all the, you know, contractually, it's not the same, obviously, and these are all different books with all different rights and options and everything. But I almost do wish that you could kind of start fresh, start from scratch, forget about all the previous King adaptations. Just have Figey start with Carrie and go forward from there and do over on all of them, except for the good ones. We can keep the good ones, I guess. Oh, that's a great idea.

You can keep it welcome to dairy. Hopefully. We'll see. We've got three more episodes. I've got high hopes. I think we have a lot of Scars Guard and a lot of Pennywise coming. One would think. All right.

Where can people find you, Zach? What would you care to plug? My Patreon. Patreon.com slash Stephen King underscore ZD. I love making stuff there. I have such a good time. I make a thing called the Dark Tower Mix tape. I write long reads.

I write lists quick hits. So yeah, check me out there. That's the only one I care about. Okay. Well, may we meet in the clearing at the end of the path or potentially on another podcast before then. Thanks, Sack. Thank you so much, Ben. Take care, you all. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business. They keep companies of all sizes connected with

internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Service is not available in all areas. This episode is brought to you by Two Good and Company coffee creamers. Howdy take your coffee? Piping hot, ice, strong, frothy. But if you love rich, creamy goodness and delicious flavor in every sip, try Two Good and Company creamers. They're made with farm fresh cream and real milk. Each serving has just three grams of sugar, 40% less. and the leading coffee creamers.

Two good creamers are available in sweet cream, roasted vanilla and lavender. So which one are you trying first? Find two good creamers at your local retailer in the creamer aisle. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection

or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tramphia, proper training is required. Tramphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them,

and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need of vaccine. explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800 526-7736 to learn more or visit

Tramphia Radio.com. Rewards recommends for November for me. Ploorbus. You've heard about it. The gas is crazy from the same creators. Better call Saul. Breaking Bad. Big Vince has created another

really lush, expansive, but also very intimate world in the story of a woman who finds herself in the midst of a very unique alien invasion, one that she cannot escape, one she can also not figure out. Ray Seahorn from Better Call Saul is your lead here. I think she's going to get that Emmy Award that so eluded her on Better Call Saul,

the show is deeply, deeply engrossing. Ask a lot of very fundamental philosophical questions. It's very entertaining to watch. Lots of talking, but also lots of fun. So that's my Ring of Verse recommends for the month of November. What's up, Ringerverse? Steve Allman here for the month of November,

for your recommends. And I'm recommending a thing that I've been waiting for all year. It is the second book in the hierarchy series by James Islington, Strength of the Few. That's right. this is back, and it's picking up right where the amazing cliffhanger in this book series left off. If you haven't read this series, I'm going to easily recommend that.

The Will of the Many is going to be the first book that you're going to want to read. And this is a direct continuation from this world that I absolutely love. Imagine like a super magic punk Roman empire where a jilted prince has to politically weave his way through a terrible and vicious hierarchy in order to get revenge for his killed family. I think the plotting in this is really good. Dialogue has always been punchy, and if you're ever a fan of something like

The Hunger Games or any sort of like dystopian type of setting, this is really, really good, but also pretty glossy and very, very plot-filled. I love it. Strength of the Few by James Islington. Hey, everybody. This is Daniel Chin, And for this month's Ring of Verse recommends, I'm recommending the latest crossover between DC and Marvel, Batman and Deadpool number one.

I have the Frank Quightly Variant cover here. This comic is a follow-up to the crossover that happened in September, which was put together by the Marvel side. This one is the DC side. That main story, which is just the flip title of Deadpool and Batman, was written by Zeb Wells and Greg Capulow. to be honest, I usually skip big crossovers between the big companies, the big franchises like this because I usually find them to be a bit too gimmicky, no shade to Team Marvel.

I'm sure that that previous crossover was great. But this one caught my eye when I was stopping by my local comic bookstore last week because of the headlining creative team of Grant Morrison and Dan Mora. And simply put, this is a fun, quick read that brings together the odd pairing of the Dark Night and the Mirk with the mouth. The art is unsurprisingly fantastic, and it's always a joy to read Grant Morrison. With legendary writers like these, I always love to see how they approach different characters and find their voices. Morrison has, of course, written a lot of Batman in the past, but it's really fun to see him get to play a role. with a character like Deadpool and really lean into the meta nature of the character.

The dialogue is very funny and just seeing him break the fourth wall in a lot of fun and very silly ways is just a blast. And like the previous crossover, this book is also backed by shorter crossover stories with some other big name creators like Scott Snyder, Tom Taylor, G. Willa Wilson and many others. together they attack on teamups between Constantine and Dr. Strange, Laura Kenny and Dick Grayson, Harley Quinn and the Hulk, and Static and Miss Marvel. These are all short and sweet vignettes that either draw parallels between the characters or simply contrast the differences between them across the company.

But the main story here, the main draw here is between Batman and Deadpool, and it's really worth the price alone. So go check it out, and thanks for let's see it. Hey, yo, I'm back talking about the return of one of the greatest battle shodun of all time. Guys, JJK is back. J.J.K. Madulo. There's aliens.

There's Curse Energy. Utah. Maka. Maki. Their family. I love it. If y'all want to tap into some supreme battle shonen, read J.J.K. Madulo, wherever you get your manga.

Shonen Jump App, I think it's like a dollar still. It's great. JJK. Medulla. Hey, Ringerverse. It's Matt James, the deputy art lead here at the ringer and frequent button mash guest. My recommendation this month is a video game called The Seance of Blake Manor. This is developed by Spooky Doorway, who released the 2017 game, The Darkside Detective. And it's published by Raw Fury, who also just released Blueprints this year, one of the best games this year easily. So it should come as no surprise that the Seance of Blake Manor is a fantastic investigative game. The Seance of Blake Manor drops you into the role of private investigator Declan Ward,

who arrives at an old Irish manor and is tasked with investigating the disappearance of a woman named Evelyn Dean. You arrive on a Friday, and the manner is filled with guests staying the weekend to attend a much-hyped seance on Sunday. your job is to find out what happened to Evelyn Dean before the seance on Sunday. The hotel manager believes that Miss Dean checked out suddenly in the middle of the night, and yet there is no record even of where she stayed within the hotel. All of the guests feel like they're hiding things from you, and the old creaky manner seems to be flooded with supernatural activity. If you were to look at screenshots of this game,

you might assume, based on the beautiful hand-drawn look of the art style, that it's a game of still images that you click through like missed or something, but it's actually a fully rendered 3D game set in first person. You walk through the manner questioning guests and staff and sneaking into their rooms when they're not around to rifle through their belongings. Once you've collected enough pieces of evidence surrounding a lead, the game will alert you that you can now form a hypothesis. And at that point, you can take all these pieces of evidence that you've gathered and plug them into this kind of like mad libs like sentence where there are blanks, sort of like the golden idol games that have come out recently.

So you gradually piece together the mystery of what happened to Miss Dean by solving all of these little sub-mystories. Now, the catch is that every question you ask, every item you examine takes up one minute of game time. So spend too much time asking irrelevant questions or interacting with useless items that don't have any relevance to the case. And you run the risk of running out of time to solve the mystery. Now, the time doesn't pass while you're just wandering around the manner. That would be awful. But it only runs when you take a significant action. You're like charged a minute at a time, which is much better.

Characters can be found in different areas of the manner, depending on what time of day it is, on what day you're on. So you have to really suss out people's schedules and constantly prioritize the importance of your leads. If you know that this character that's not around that much is going to be in the ballroom at this time, you have to prioritize seeing them versus a character that seems to just be hanging out in the lobby all the time, things like that. The biggest challenge of making a mystery game is creating a story with enough twists and turns to hold a player's attention while making sure to not overwhelm them with so many, like, details that can easily be confused or forgotten. Just like keeping all of the elements of the mystery in your brain can feel intimidating. But the reason why the seance of Blake Manor is so successful is that all of the characters, and the leads and the developments are automatically tracked in your journal in the game. It's a very complex mystery, but at no point did I have to grab a pen and paper to keep track

of things. Everything's just automatically logged, and if I needed to revisit it later, I knew exactly where to go to. It's organized incredibly intuitively. It does take a few hours to get used to the systems and menus of this game. But the onboarding of all that is really well-paced. And once you really settle into that, a few hours in, there's nothing that gets in the way of you and the mystery, and the thrill of that mystery. In the last half of this game, as I was about to go to bed,

I had a few key breakthroughs that led to an exhilarating cascade of more breakthroughs that just kind of spiraled into me playing the game for four hours. straight when I should have been going to bed. If you like mystery games or mystery books or mystery movies, you should play the Seance of Blake Manor. It's a game that even non-gamers can play. It's a landmark game in the mystery genre. It's an instant classic.

It's one of my favorite games of the year. The Seance of Blake Manor is unfortunately only available on Steam right now, but it is at an incredibly fair price of $20. You know who would be, Jelmy, back with another Ring of Verse recommends. And for the month of November, talking about Jurassic World Chaos Theory. Ladies and gentlemen, it is the final season of this long, long journey of the new Blar 6, Sammy, Yaz, Darius, Ben, Brooklyn, the other guy. named Kinji. Who cares about

Kenji? I care about Kenji. I really am, I'm really sad to see it in, but I am really, really, really, really, really looking forward to what's going on. I haven't finished it yet, so don't spoil it for me. But if you're not locked in, this is

the culmination of nine seasons of really special television, and we finally get to see what happens to our heroes at the end. I get emotional. Because I love this stuff, man. It means something to me, man.

And it's ending. And again, like, I know it's silly. It's animation. Look at these little kids. They fly them down dinosaurs. How are these six kids? I run dinosaurs for nine seasons of combined television. Don't ask me.

Ask the show. But I'm glad that they did it. I'm going to miss it. But I cannot wait to see how it ends. So for the month of November, I am recommending Jurassic World Chaos Theory for all the world to go watch. Lock in. Hey, look who's back.

It's Ben Lindberg, but more importantly, Grumpkin, the Doxend, and the little pumpkin toy that she goes nowhere without right now, because in her head, it's still Halloween, evidently. But it's Thanksgiving for us, and we are always thankful for Grumpkin at Ring ofverse Recommends. We're also thankful for the listener nominations we receive each month at Ringaverse Recommends at gmail.com. And this month's submission comes to us from Mary Tunison, who writes. For the month of November, I recommend the nine-episode podcast series or audio drama Star Trek Khan.

In a time when we are between New Trek seasons, sadly, this surprisingly under-publicized gem. It's true. I wasn't aware of it. And I'm a trekker. Was a delightful listen. Navine Andrews of Lost Fame ever heard of it slash him? Yes, I have. Does a deliciously complex voice performance as the infamous Khan Nunian Singh.

And the supporting voice cast is also wonderful, including, and favorite George Takeh as Sulu. Here's all you need to know heading in. Khan was the leader of a group of genetically modified superhumans called Augments, who tried to take over Earth during the Eugenics Wars. After a series of events involving suspended animation, the passage of 300 years, and a confrontation with James Kirk in the Enterprise, Khan, his followers, and an enterprise crew member turned sympathizer,

are all exiled or offered a second chance, depending on your point of view, to the dangerous planet of SETI Alpha 5. Did Kirk know the planet was doomed and Starfleet covered it up? Was Khan really a benevolent ruler, a dangerous tyrant, or something in between? What happened on SETI Alpha 5 during those 15 years of exile? The series fills in the events between Khan's first appearance on Star Trek the original series and what ultimately transpires in the widely beloved Star Trek 2, The Wrath of Khan. I hope you tune in and enjoy this deep space adventure.

I believe I will. Thank you very much, Mary, for the recommendation. And thanks to everyone for their recommendations this month, including Van Lathen, who recommended Pluribus on Apple TV. No longer Apple TV plus, but you know I will always recommend a sci-fi series on Apple TV, including Pluribus seconded. Steve Alman recommended The Strength of the Few, a novel in the Hierarchy Quartet by James Eilington. So Steve is holding down the fantasy book corner normally occupied by Jovibeau. Anna Robinson on these episodes. Daniel Chin, Batman Deadpool number one, Charles Holmes, The Life of Chuck, always involves manga.

And Charles recommended a manga called Jujitsu Kaizen Modulo. Matt James, my sometimes button mash companion, recommended The Seance of Blake Manor, a mystery game on Steam. Jomi Adoneron, no surprises here, recommended Jurassic World Chaos Theory, season four on Netflix. And our listener, Mary Tunison, recommended

Star Trek con, the audio drama, which is available on Spotify. Didn't know I needed more con in my life, but suddenly I do. And I, of course, accompanied by Zach Dion, recommended It. Welcome to Derry, Season 1 on HBO and HBO Max. Don't be pennywise and pound foolish. Check out It. We all float down here at the Ring ofverse. You'll float too.

That will do it for November and for the November edition of Ring ofverse recommends, but there's a lot of life left yet in 2025. much more content coming, which will be covering on the Ring ofverse and House of Bar. We've got a new avatar movie. We've got the hopefully thrilling conclusion of Stranger Things. We have a new season of Fallout, which we'll be covering weekly this time around. More Percy Jackson, Metroid Prime 4, the usual array of end-of-year backward-looking content where we review the best of 2025.

And of course, you have been the best of 2025 for listening and following and supporting and interacting. It's Thanksgiving. We give thanks for you. We're so grateful that you enable us to keep talking to each other, talking to you, making these pods with your patronage. Thanks very much. We hope that will continue next month and in the new year.

Much more coming in December. You can keep your recommendations coming via ringaverse recommends at gmail.com. And on behalf of my colleagues and of course, Grumkin, we hope that until next time, you'll recommend the ringerverse. Enjoy more ways to save at Ralph's, like low prices in every aisle. And when you download the Ralph's app,

you can clip and save more with digital coupons every week. Plus, you can earn fuel points to save up to $1 per gallon at the pump. At Ralph's, you can enjoy more ways to save and more rewards every time you shop. So it's always easy to save big every day with savings and rewards.

Ralph's SoCal for over 150 years, savings may vary by state, Fuel restrictions apply. See site for details. Did you know if your windows are bare, indoor temperatures can go up 20 degrees? Turn the temperature down with blinds.com and get up to 50% off custom window treatments

like solar roller shades and more during the Memorial Day mega sale. Whether you want to DIY it or have a pro handle everything, we've got you. Free samples, real design experts, and zero pressure. Just help when you need it. Shop up to 50% off site wide

and huge savings on Doorbusters right now during the Memorial Day mega sale at blinds.com. Rules and restrictions apply.